Tooth And Nail (33 page)

So unbecoming … in a man
. What kind of obituary was that?

‘John?’

It was Flight’s voice. Behind him stood two officers armed with pistols.

‘No need for silver bullets, George,’ said Rebus. He stood there, surrounded by what he supposed would be millions of pounds’ worth of damaged works of art, alarm bells ringing, while outside the traffic in central London would be backed up for miles until Trafalgar Square could be opened again.

‘I told you it’d be easy,’ he said.

Lisa Frazer was fine. Shock, a few bruises, whiplash. The hospital wanted to keep her in overnight, just to be sure. They wanted to keep Rebus in, too, but he refused. They gave him painkillers instead, and three stitches in his stomach. The cut, they said, was fairly superficial, but it was best to be safe. The thread they used was thick and black.

By the time he arrived at Chambers’s huge two-storey flat in Islington, the place was crawling with police, forensics, photographers and the usual retinue. The reporters outside were desperate for a quote, some recognising him from the impromptu conference he had given outside the house on Copperplate Street. But he pushed past them and into the Wolfman’s lair.

‘John, how are you?’ It was George Flight, looking bemused by the day’s proceedings. He had placed a hand on Rebus’s shoulder. Rebus smiled.

‘I’m fine, George. What have you found?’

They were standing in the main hall. Flight glanced back into one of the rooms off this hall. ‘You won’t believe it,’ he said. ‘I’m still not sure I do.’ There was a tang of whisky on Flight’s breath. The celebrations had begun already.

Rebus walked to the door and into the room. This was where the photographers and forensics people were busiest. A tall man rose to his feet from behind a sofa and looked across to Rebus. It was Philip Cousins. He smiled and nodded. Near him stood Isobel Penny, sketchbook in hand. But Rebus noticed that she wasn’t drawing, and her face had lost all traces of liveliness. Even she, it seemed, could still be shocked.

The scene was certainly shocking. But worst of all was the smell, the smell and the buzzing of flies. One wall was covered in what had been paintings – very crudely done paintings, as even Rebus could tell. But now they had been slashed into tatters, some of which lay across the floor. And on the opposite wall was as much graffiti as would befit any tower block in Churchill Estate. Venomous stuff: FUCK ART. FEEL THE POOR. KILL PIGS. The stuff of madness.

There were two bodies thrown casually behind the sofa, and a third lying under a table, as though some rudimentary effort had been made to tidy them out of sight. Carpet and walls were stained with fine sprays of blood and the cloying smell told Rebus that at least one of the bodies had been here for several days. Easy to confront this now, now that it was at an end. Not so easy to work out the ‘why?’. That was what worried Flight.

‘I just can’t find a motive, John. I mean, Chambers had everything. Why the hell did he need to …? I mean, why would he just …?’ They were in the flat’s living-room. No clues were being offered up. Chambers’s private life seemed as tidy and innocuous as the rest of his home. Just that one room, that one secret corner. That apart, they might have been in any successful barrister’s apartment, poring over his books, his desk, his correspondence, his computer files.

It didn’t really bother Rebus. It wouldn’t bother him supposing they never found out why. He shrugged.

‘Wait till the biography’s published, George,’ said Rebus, ‘maybe then you’ll get your answer.’ Or ask a psychologist, he thought to himself. He didn’t doubt there would be plenty of theories.

But Flight was shaking his head, rubbing at his head, his face, his neck. He still couldn’t believe it had come to an end. Rebus touched a hand to his arm. Their eyes met. Rebus nodded slowly, then winked.

‘You should have been in that Jag, George. It was magic.’

Flight managed to pull a smile out of the air. ‘Tell that to the judge,’ he said. ‘Tell that to the judge.’

Rebus ate that night at George Flight’s home, a meal cooked by Marion. So at last they were having the promised dinner together, but it was a fairly sombre occasion, enlivened only by an interview with some art historian on the late-night news. He was talking about the damage to the paintings in the National Gallery’s Spanish Room.

‘Such pointless waste … vandalism … sheer, wanton … priceless … perhaps irreparable … thousands of pounds … heritage.’

‘Blah, blah, blah,’ said Flight sneeringly. ‘At least you can patch up a bloody painting. These people talk half the time out of their arses.’

‘George!’

‘Sorry, Marion,’ said Flight sheepishly. He glanced towards Rebus, who winked back at him.

Later, after she had gone to bed, the two men sat together drinking a final brandy.

‘I’ve decided to retire,’ said Flight. ‘Marion’s been nagging me for ages. My health’s not what it was.’

‘Not serious, I hope?’

Flight shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that. But there’s a security firm, they’ve offered to take me on. More money, nine till five. You know how it is.’

Rebus nodded. He’d seen some of the best of his elders drawn like moths to a lightbulb when security firms and the like came to call. He drained his glass.

‘When will you be leaving?’ Flight asked.

‘I thought I’d go back tomorrow. I can come back down again when they need me to give evidence.’

Flight nodded. ‘Next time you come, we’ve got a spare bedroom here.’

‘Thanks, George.’ Rebus rose to his feet.

‘I’ll drive you back,’ said Flight. But Rebus shook his head.

‘Call me a cab,’ he insisted. ‘I don’t want you done for D and D. Think what it would do to your pension.’

Flight stared into his brandy glass. ‘You’ve got a point,’ he said. ‘Okay then, a cab it is.’ He slipped a hand into his pocket. ‘By the way, I’ve got you a little present.’

He held the clenched fist out to Rebus, who placed his own open palm beneath it. A slip of paper dropped from Flight’s hand into his. Rebus unfolded the note. It was an address. Rebus looked up at Flight and nodded his understanding.

‘Thanks, George,’ he said.

‘No rough stuff, eh, John?’

‘No rough stuff,’ agreed Rebus.

He slept deeply that night, but woke at six the next morning and sat up in bed immediately. His stomach hurt, a burning sensation as though he had just swallowed a measure of spirits. The doctors had told him not to drink alcohol. Last night he had drunk just the one glass of wine and two glasses of brandy. He rubbed the area around the wound, willing the ache to go away, then took two more painkillers with a glass of tap-water before dressing and putting on his shoes.

His taxi driver, though sleepy, was full of tales of yesterday’s action.

‘I was on Whitehall, wasn’t I? An hour and a quarter in the cab before the traffic got moving again. Hour and a bleedin’ quarter. Didn’t see the chase either, but I heard the smash.’

Rebus sat back in silence, all the way to the block of flats in Bethnal Green. He paid the driver and looked again at the slip of paper Flight had given him. Number 46, fourth floor, flat six. The elevator smelled of vinegar. A crumpled paper package in one corner was oozing under-cooked chips and a tail-end of batter. Flight was right: it made all the difference having a good network of informers. It made for quick information. But what a good copper’s network could get, so too could a good villain’s. Rebus hoped he’d be in time.

He walked quickly across the small landing from the open lift to the door of one of the flats where two empty milk bottles stood to attention in a plastic holder. He picked up one bottle and hurried back to the lift just as its doors were shuddering to a close to place the milk bottle in the remaining gap. The doors stayed where they were. So did the lift.

You never knew when a quick getaway would be needed.

Then he walked along the narrow corridor to flat six, braced himself against the wall and kicked at the doorhandle with the heel of his shoe. The door flew open and he walked into a stuffy hall. Another door, another kick and he was face to face with Kenny Watkiss.

Watkiss had been asleep on a mattress on the floor. He was standing now, clad only in underpants and shivering, against the furthest wall from the door. He pushed his hair back when he saw who it was.

‘Jee-Jesus,’ he stammered. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Hello, Kenny,’ said Rebus, stepping into the room. ‘I thought we’d have a little chat.’

‘What about?’ You didn’t get as frightened as Kenny Watkiss was by having your door kicked in at half past six in the morning. You only got that frightened by the idea of
who
was doing it and
why
.

‘About Uncle Tommy.’

‘Uncle Tommy?’ Kenny Watkiss smiled unconvincingly. He moved back to the mattress and started pulling on a pair of torn denims. ‘What about him?’

‘What are you so scared of, Kenny? Why are you hiding?’

‘Hiding?’ That smile again. ‘Who said I was hiding?’

Rebus shook his head, his own smile one of apparent sympathy. ‘I feel sorry for you, Kenny, really I do. I see your kind a hundred times a week. All ambition and no brain. All talk but no guts. I’ve only been in London a week, and already I know how to find you when I want you.

Do you think Tommy
can’t
? You think maybe he’ll lay off? No, he’s going to nail your head to the wall.’

‘Don’t talk daft.’ Now that he was dressed, having pulled on a black T-shirt, Kenny’s voice had lost some of its trembling. But he couldn’t hide the look in his eyes, the haunted, hunted look. Rebus decided to make it easy for him. He reached into a pocket and brought out a packet of cigarettes, offered one to Kenny and lit it for him before taking one himself. He rubbed at his stomach. Jesus, it was hurting. He hoped the stitches were holding.

‘You’ve been ripping him off,’ Rebus said casually. ‘He handled stolen goods, you were his courier, passing it down the chain. But you’ve been skimming a little off the top, haven’t you? And with each job you’d take a little more than he knew about. Why? Saving for that Docklands flat? So you could start your own business? Maybe you got greedy, I don’t know. But Tommy got suspicious. You were in court that day because you wanted to see him go down. It was the only thing that could have saved you. When he didn’t, you still tried putting one over on him, yelling out from the public gallery. But by then it was only a matter of time. And when you heard that the case had been dropped altogether, well, you knew he’d come straight after you. So you ran. You didn’t run far enough, Kenny.’

‘What’s it to you?’ The words were angry. But it was the anger that came of fear. It wasn’t directed at Rebus. He was merely the messenger.

‘Just this,’ Rebus said calmly: ‘keep away from Sammy. Don’t ever go near her again, don’t even try to talk to her. In fact, your best bet right now is to get on a train or a bus or whatever and get the hell out of London. Don’t worry, we’ll pin Tommy for something sooner or later. Then maybe you can come back.’ He had slipped a hand into his pocket again. It came out holding a fold of ten pound notes, four of which he peeled off and threw onto the mattress. ‘I’m offering you a one-way ticket, and I’m suggesting you take it right now, this morning.’

The eyes and voice were wary. ‘You’re not going to take me in?’

‘Why should I?’

The smile this time was more confident still. He looked at the money. ‘It’s just family, Rebus. That’s all. I can take care of myself.’

‘Can you?’ Rebus nodded, taking in the room with its peeling wallpaper and boarded-up window, the mattress with its single rumpled sheet. ‘Fair enough.’ He turned to go.

‘It wasn’t just me, you know.’

Rebus stopped but didn’t turn. ‘What?’ He tried not to sound interested.

‘There was a copper, too. He was on a cut from the robberies.’

Rebus sucked in air. Did he need to know? Did he
want
to know? Kenny Watkiss didn’t give him the choice.

‘A detective called Lamb,’ he said. Rebus exhaled silently, but, saying nothing, showing nothing, walked back out of the flat and, pulling open the lift doors, kicking away the milk bottle, pressed the button for the ground floor and waited for the slow descent.

Outside the block, he paused to stub out his cigarette. He rubbed at his stomach again. Stupid not to have brought the painkillers with him. From the corner of his eye, he could see the unmarked transit van in the car park. Six forty-five. There could be a perfectly rational explanation for it, for the fact that two men sat stonily in its front seats. They might be about to go to work, mightn’t they?

In fact, Rebus knew damned fine that’s what they were doing. And he had another choice now. He could let them go to work, or he could stop them. It took him another second or two to decide, but finally, with a picture of Samantha’s face in his head, he walked across nonchalantly to the van and, the men still ignoring his existence, thumped hard on the passenger-side window. The passenger looked at him with undisguised enmity, but, seeing that Rebus was undeterred, rolled down the window.

‘Yeah?’

Rebus stuck his ID so far into the man’s face that the plastic coating brushed against his nose.

‘Police,’ he snapped. ‘Now get the fuck out of here. And tell Tommy Watkiss we’ve got his nephew under twenty-four hour watch. Anything happens, we’ll know where to come and who to charge.’ Rebus stood back and looked carefully at the man. ‘Think you can remember all that, or do you want me to write it down?’

The passenger was growling audibly as he rolled the window back up. The driver was already starting the van. As it began to move off, Rebus gave its side a farewell kick. Maybe Kenny would leave and maybe he’d stay. It was up to him. Rebus had given him a chance. Whether the young man took it or not was out of Rebus’s hands.

‘Like Pontius Pilate,’ he mumbled to himself as he made for the main road. Standing by a lamppost, waiting and praying for a black cab to come along, he saw Kenny Watkiss emerge from the flats, a duffel-bag slung across his shoulder, and, looking around him, start to jog towards the far end of the estate. Rebus nodded to himself. ‘That’s my boy,’ he said, as, with protesting brakes, a cab slowed to a halt beside him.